Artist: Confront Hate
Title: Diabolical Disguise Of Madness
Genre: Groove Metal
Release Date: 3rd July 2011
Label: Hell Xis Records
Album Review
CONFRONT HATE’S first full length debut took a while to finally put together, but it stands as a fine piece of mixed groove and thrash metal. Opening with ‘Sokenra’, listeners will think they were hearing almost epic doom metal with how slow and well composed the music leads in with the lengthy guitar passages all layered together to create a keyboard effect before the more melodic chugging comes in. Followed by ‘Hate Will Never Die’, the band hits with full force and explodes with hard, chugging riffs that have their own melodies mixed in, but mostly it’s a mix of the same few riffs that are played a varying speeds; it only gets really melodic when the solo hits. Vocally, the singer sounds a lot like the original DIVINE HERESY vocalist- a raw, bellowing mix of hardcore meets metalcore. As the album progresses on fans will notice different variations in the music. Rather than being just one giant repetitive glob of groove metal, CONFRONT HATE make sure to vary things up in musical structure, such as the seamless guitar flow of ‘New Divine Shadow’ which melds quite well with the other chugging riffs, and even carries an Eastern tinge to it. It is tracks like these that really give the band its flavour and helps it try to forge its own sound.
The second instrumental, ‘Love Grows Cold’, is just as epic as the opening track, but tends to repeat itself a little bit more with the synth-like riffs. Again, the band aims for a more melodic side of metal that isn’t as aggressive or chugging as their vocal lead tracks, but listeners should be fine with these brief, softer moments. The title track, ‘Diabolical Disguise Of Madness’, is the most dynamic track on the album as it just builds and builds until calming for one of the best guitar solos ever on the album. It isn’t very fast, but just smoothly glides along with the other instruments backing it up. The vocals range from their usual roar to a bit of a whisper, which is also quite effective. The final track, ‘Feeling The Silence’, would have been a fantastic closer - from the heavy opening all the way to the faded single string guitar end - if it had stopped at the six minute mark. Instead, the band lets the track drag on for about seven minutes of silence. There are no Easter eggs at the end, no hidden song; just the long ring of maybe a chord being tuned or an amp unplugged and that was it. It’s one of those moments that make listeners feel like they’ve just lost several minutes that they will never get back and wonder why the band didn’t stop the track when they were already ahead. One will never know.
However, if one were to listen to the entirety of ‘Diabolical Disguise Of Madness’ and stop the last track at just after six minutes, then the album would sound pretty darn good without any flaws. This is pretty heavy, crunching metal that knows how to bring in the right hooks to keep listeners gravitated rather than just repeating the same three or four riffs with vocals shouting over them. CONFRONT HATE’s album is certainly angry, but cleverly constructed to make one want to pay attention to their messages behind the music. It’s rare a debut comes off this strong, but when it does, it is certainly worth checking out. Fans of thrash metal, groove metal, or even modern metal in general will find this quite appealing.
Tracklist
01. Sokenra - 2:34
02. Hate Will Never Die - 4:17
03. Corrupted Desire - 4:22
04. Conception - 4:40
05. New Divine Shadow - 4:15
06. Love Grows Cold - 3:41
07. Diabolical Disguise of Madness - 6:25
08. Feeling The Silence - 13:38
Line-up
David Rosa - Vocals
Ricardo Albino - Guitars
Pedro Faustino - Guitars
Pedro Veigas - Bass
Pedro Costa - Drums
Website
www.confronthate.com
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 7
Total: 7.5 / 10
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